Be The Pigeon

Many friends from outside the area have inquired how we've fared through the recent disaster in Colorado.  Here's an update: Our current place (rental) is fine, though the property we're building on was decimated pretty badly (it's about 2 miles from where we presently live, next to a lake on the St Vrain river).  The river is normally 20-30 feet wide and 1-2 feet deep.  I could have waded across it no problem a week ago.  It was 200-500yds wide when we saw it a few days ago (no typo there).  The shot below is our lake, but it's connected now to the river and the next lake over.  The water continues for hundreds of yards to the right side of the frame.  Utterly amazing. Here's the sign to our neighborhood.  Irony is we just changed the street name from Dougla Drive to Waterside Ln.  How appropriate. This guy tried to go around the road barriers.  Bad idea.  Fire department got their engine stuck trying...

I took my 8-year old on a date tonight and she chose for her activity--wait for it--Walmart Bingo. She found bingo cards online and after our dinner, we commenced the hunt. The items on the card were mostly outrageous and not likely to find (including "bearded woman"), though not outside the realm of possibility; the "someone buying beer and diapers" came pretty close. Here, however, were some delightful finds I did manage to pick up, even if not on the bingo card: Teenage girl in PJ's Dude with "Shh, this is my hangover shirt" t-shirt Dude with one eye Dude with a mohawk and a mouth full of chew Guy buying worms Guy with a full 1-1/2" gauge in his ear, plus more jewelry on his lips.  He looked like livestock Broken bottles on the floor in the drink aisle Mormon missionaries.  Maybe they broke the drinks!  Luckily they were missing the facial jewelry.  Phew. A girl playing (successfully) with 3 hoola hoops at the same time    ^^^M...

This is entry #15. Link to entry #14. Jolayne is also chronicling our trip  here. Final Thoughts . What an amazing journey we had!  This was a life-defining event for both me personally and also for my family.  As I've now had several months to consider the experience as a whole, I do regret that we were immediately thrown into the chaos and stress of moving once we returned home; I didn't really get to bask in the experience the way I'd hoped.  However, I am grateful for the time I spent noting and writing down the things that happened on this trip.  My journal entries are long and perhaps too detailed.  But I've learned from previous trips that the details and vividness of the experience tends to wear with time, so I'm hoping to keep as much of this as I can. My favorite joke was "How many people can you fit on a jeepney?"  Answer: "Isa pa, isa pa!"  (One more, one more!)  Here's a fun clip I put together on our orphan...

This is entry #14. Link to entry #13. Jolayne is also chronicling our trip  here. Day 12-13.  Wednesday, April 10th . Day 12 picked up exactly where day 11 left off; it's all part of the same thing.  Our flight from Manila wound up leaving almost an hour late, but it was no big deal.  We boarded a new A330 about 1230am and pretty much all immediately fell asleep.  The plane was very quiet, and none of us touched the food we were served; Kristen probably slept the best and Amy the worst since she was sitting next to another guy that kept bumping her.  It's funny about personal space on airplanes.  Things you'd never do in public normally are all-of-a-sudden common and acceptable when confined on a plane: touching, rubbing, all sorts of awkward.  The flight was about 3 hours was all, and before we knew it we were landing back in Incheon/Seoul.  We took off at 82 degrees (+humidity) and landed to 32 degrees.  We'd taken ...

This is entry #13. Link to entry #12. Jolayne is also chronicling our trip  here. Day 11.  Tuesday, April 9th . Next: Philippines - Day 12 (Traveling/Korea) Tuesday, our last day in the Philippines.  It started early as usual, as Jolayne wakes up before the sun (pretty much anywhere in the world, it would seem).  It's actually a nice time of day; not as hot.   This morning we noticed it was slightly cloudy and the wind was stiff and had shifted, coming in on our side of the island.  It was quite refreshing.  We liked it and so did the kite boarders. We had a busy morning planned, getting ready to go (and scheduling in a private massage!)  Before all that, I decided to take a quick jaunt back down to the bayan (town center) to take more movies/videos and to see about buying a couple last minute souvenirs.  Really I just wanted to get all the experience I could before we had to leave, snapping ...